Chapter Three
FBI Headquarters
8:28 am
I caught her as she fell. Laying Scully on the ground I checked for a pulse and when I found it although thready and irregular I let out the breath I'd been holding only to find myself holding my breath again as I called to her.
"Scully…Scully come on…D----" this scene was all too familiar. Picking up the phone I called for help.
Although records showed it only took four minutes for them to get her out of the building and on the road to the hospital it felt like an eternity as I sat helplessly waiting for paramedics. There was so much I wanted to do for her but nothing in my capability.
I wanted to hunt down the people who had done this to her but I didn't know who to be looking for. In all honesty I had no evidence that anyone had done anything to her.
I wanted to hunt down a cure for whatever it was that was doing this to her but I didn't know what to look for.
I wanted to go and call her mother, anything at all to get me out of this room. Standing around and waiting wasn't doing anything to help her. I needed something to put my back against. Something to occupy my mind so that I couldn't think about or process what was happening.
As much as I wanted to be there for her now I wanted to run far from this room. I hated visiting Scully in the hospital because it reminded me that there were too many reasons for her to quit and too many reasons for me to worry about.
It reminded me that we weren't invincible that at the blink of an eye one of us could be gone, leaving the other alone to struggle through this mess we liked to call life.
It reminded me of how much I'd taken from her.
It reminded me of my helplessness, my faults and inefficiencies.
I didn't like standing helpless as my friend walked through death's door time and time again only to be saved miraculously.
I believed in miracles, but not an endless supply of them. And I figured our supply of miracles was almost if not already up. One day Scully wouldn't be turning around and walking back out of death's door. One day she would be gone for good and the thought petrified me.
As I followed them out of the building my mind must have went into autopilot because I have no recollection of how I got to the hospital. All I knew as I paced in that dreary long hallway was that Scully was in serious trouble. I'd heard snatches of conversation, we almost lost her on the way over, or I've never seen anything quiet like it, according to her past history which is miraculous I must say… or my all time favorite a conversation between two nurses who both looked at me with so much pity I could almost gag on it.
"Is that her boyfriend?"
"No it's her partner but according to Anderson the two of them are known around here as regulars. She says that she suspects the two of them have something going on."
"I sure wouldn't wanna be the one to tell him."
"Well I'm glad that isn't in my job description as well. I guess their luck just ran out."
"Guess so."
I had a hard time sitting still after that one.
I managed to contact Scully's family while I waited. Her mother had been out of town visiting friends. I sure wouldn't want that left on my answering machine. I always thought it would be the other way around. Scully leaving a message on my mother's machine, but I guess I was wrong. I guess I've been wrong about a lot of things.
Finally after five hours of pacing the hall, reading every teen or housekeeping magazine on the face of the planet and driving the nurses insane with my questions I was ready to go and check myself in for insanity when a doctor walked over to me. After a brief introduction he delivered his fatal news.
"Your partner is in very serious condition. It appears as if her cancer has come out of remission and is in its final stages. She is comatose and has been since her arrival. I will not lie to you we almost lost her a few times in the past few hours. The tumor is untreatable and is growing at a pace we have never seen before. We've done everything we can. Patients in her condition don't last very much longer and in all honesty I can tell you that your partner, the woman you knew, is most likely already gone. Chances are slim that she will wake up and impossible that she will recover. Unless of course you believe in miracles."
I stood dumbly looking at my feet slowly shaking my head trying to calmly accept Scully's fate. Trying to accept that after six years I was losing her and the last thing that had taken place between us was a stupid argument brought on by me. It's hard not to hate yourself when you screw up someone else's life so badly.
"At the stage…at the stage…could she have known?" I asked finding that my thoughts couldn't be expressed as clearly as I wanted because they got caught somewhere in my esophagus between my heart and my larynx but needing to know if it was the only answer I ever got. Even if I already knew what the doctor would say. Even if I knew the doctor would confirm my fears.
"I'm not sure Mr. Mulder, that it would be possible for your partner not to know."
Of course.
I wasn't expecting anything else. It made sense, hauntingly so.
She knew she was dying. She'd just wanted out so she could enjoy the last little bit of time she had left. I couldn't blame her or hate her for it. It was so very like her to pretend that everything was fine. It wouldn't have mattered how long I'd argued with her over her resignation. If she hadn't collapsed I never would have found out that she was out of remission.
I never would have gotten the opportunity to say goodbye because she never would have told me she was leaving and that this time it was impossible for me to go with her.
I wanted to go with her.
I didn't want her to leave me behind.
She wasn't really. She couldn't be
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain--and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
College lit classes, memorized poems. They always came back to me at the strangest moments.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat.
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
Scully's doctor was staring at me. I knew he was waiting to see if I'd be ok. But I couldn't reassure him with Frost running through my head.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-by;
And further still at an unearthly height
One luminary clock against the sky
I guess it wasn't all too strange for me to be thinking about those poems. I've learned it's a good way to distance myself from a situation.
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
"Can I see her?" It was a logical question. One I'm sure any sane and rational person would ask and it appeared to be the correct one because the doctor, the bringer of my death, seemed to relax. I wondered if he thought I'd lose it on him.
"Follow me." he nodded and I followed as he led me. Emotionally blind. Yet things seemed to scream out to me in harsh colors. The old, the young, the sick, they were all here, those beginning their lives and those ending them.
As this giver of life, this miracle worker, led me down the twisted maze of hallways, the twisted maze of emotions, I wondered at his title. Could he really heal?
Where was Scully's miracle?
I knew that Scully had plenty of miracles. That she'd borrowed miracles that weren't hers to begin with. But I was jealous of the laughing couple with their new child, the middle-aged man with his elderly father. They had something that Scully may never have.
Life.
I'd taken that from her.
She was in ICU, when was she not. It was always ICU. It was never just a bruise or cut. It was always ICU. The Intensive Care Unit. The Impossibly Cold Unit. The Investigative Crime Unit.
Lost among the wires that gave her life. The jungle of wires that kept her breathing, kept her heart beating. Kept her alive so the tumor could eat her.
The doctor left me to inform Scully's mother, who'd just arrived from her shortened vacation. This was not what Margaret Scully was supposed to come back to.
My monologue was entirely internal as I grabbed her cold hand.
Well Scully it looks like this is it. Funny I always thought it would be the other way around. I hate this Scully. I hate how I've ruined your life. I hate how it isn't me lying there right now. We both know it should be me. It's ironic but the machines that are keeping you alive are killing you. They feed that tumor that will ultimately end everything for you and me. I wish I could tell you to fight this. But I don't want to hurt you anymore. I should just give up my selfish desires to keep you here with me. It's selfish of me to wish you alive and conscious when I know it will only hurt you more. I should be able to just let you go like you wanted.
Your mother just arrived. She shouldn't have to see you like this. How many times have I made her suffer as well? It's too many. Too much.
You knew. We both knew. I guess I'm just going to have to live with the regret of knowing and not saying anything to you. Not telling you about those articles, those obituaries. I should have said something. I wanted a goodbye.
But I guess I just wanted to believe.
I wanted to believe in forever. That we had time to sort everything out.
You're beautiful Scully.
I brushed a strand of her silk-like hair out of her sleeping eyes.
In more then a physical way. Your mind is a work of art. The kind you hang on your wall because it delights you so. The kind you are pained over losing. The kind you're proud to have around.
Scully...
I squeeze her hand as more poetry comes to mind. This time I speak my words.
"In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole."
The door swung open again and Mrs. Scully rushed over to her daughter's side. I retreated as mother grasped daughter's hand and whispered words of comfort.
"Dana honey, Mommy is here." Funny how when things end roughly, Mom is no longer Mom but Mommy. Mommy kissed boo-boos and made them all better. Mommy always knew where it hurt. I could sure use a mommy right about now.
Not that I deserved one.
I'd almost backed out of the cold room when she turned to me.
"How did it happen Fox?"
I wanted to run from her pain filled eyes. To hide under a rock rather then to tell her about her daughter's last conscious moments. But she deserved to know.
"We were fighting." I detached myself from the conversation. "She decided to resign. She knew. She collapsed." I couldn't form anymore complex thoughts.
"Knew about what?"
"She knew she was dying or that something was wrong. But she didn't want to tell anyone."
"She never did like it when people made a big fuss over her."
No she didn't, did she. I had to get out of there.
The room seemed to be shrinking. Upon my entrance I'd thought it huge and her small frame on the bed impossibly small. But now it was closing in on me and leaving no room for anything, air included.
"I'll leave you two alone." I muttered quickening my steady retreat.
"Thank you Fox. I know this is hard but I also know that Dana would have wanted you here. You meant a lot to her." I acknowledged her with a brief shake of my head.
She meant a lot to me too. More then a lot.
She was my freaking light in all this mess.
How the hell was I supposed to go on after she was gone?
I couldn't. She couldn't.
"She means a lot to me too. We found something to cure her with last time and I'm not going to stop looking until I find something this time."
Suddenly I knew that this was not the end. That it couldn't ever be the end. That there was no way I was just going to sit back and watch her pass out of my life.
She wasn't going anywhere.
The Lone Gunmen
1:01 pm
"We don't think that it can be done that's all that we are saying. She means a lot to us too Mulder but sometimes you have to accept what you can't change. We'll all miss her but she is better off now." Byers tried to comfort.
"I can't accept it." I started pacing and throwing my hands around in the air wildly, as if any of that could help. "I won't accept it." pause for dramatic effect. Resume pacing. "There has to be a cure." end pacing. Maybe if I resorted to stage directions this would be easier to handle.
Mulder moves down center and ignores Byers' pained expression. Frohike moves up right turning his back on the rest of the room and especially Mulder. Langley fiddles on his keyboard nervously.
Nope, it didn't help.
"Mulder we know how you feel but the chances of finding a cure are about one in a million and then taking into account the amount of time you have, it's almost impossible. Langley muttered.
"But not entirely impossible." I was clinging to any shred of hope they could offer me.
"No not entirely but..." Frohike drifted off knowing that it wouldn't matter what any of them said.
"I'm not giving up on her. She wouldn't give up on me. We can't give up on her." I pleaded with them for their help.
One by one, reluctant heads nodded their consent.
An: Poems by Robert Frost: Acquainted with the Night. Poem by Mark Strand: Keeping Things Whole.